1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to apparatus adapted to heat or cool a moving fluid, and, in one embodiment, relates to apparatus useful for evaporating and/or humidifying volatile fluids such as fuel-air mixtures for internal combustion engines. In another embodiment, the apparatus is useful in radiator or heat exchange applications.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,398,900, Sweeney and I disclose a high sheer dispersion unit useful for reducing the particle size of any granular solid, by premixing or blending in a liquid medium and then pumping into another unit where the pressure employed varies in accordance with the viscosity of the blend and the flow rate. The structure described in the aforementioned patent includes a housing having a chamber with a rotor positioned within the chamber and mounted on a hollow shaft. The periphery of the rotor includes indentations therein cooperating with inlets and outlets so as to achieve a shearing action of particles passing across the surface of the rotor between the indentations in the rotor. The hollow shaft described therein has a tube extending therethrough so that a heating substance, such as water, may be pumped through the tube and into the rotor to heat the work during the shearing operation.
Recent developments in the field of internal combustion engines have been directed toward precombustion fuel heaters which serve to preheat the combustible product prior to entry into the engine, to render the operation of the engine more efficient. Additionally, there have been numerous developments in the area of cooling and heating fluids whereby a radiation or heat exchange effect is employed to heat or cool a moving fluid.